Gespenster

In days of old, missing girls were said to have been “spirited away", and the people believed they had gone to the land of the gods. Today, lists of missing girls include details of their age, appearance, clothing, and the day they were last seen. Reading through these lists, we feel an inexpressible fear for these girls who have gone to an unknown world, but another thought leaps to mind. It may be that these girls in reality are living lives in some place unknown to us. But the girls in these lists, from the moment they disappear, become detached from this world’s axis of time, and become eternal girls, never aging. As my body and mind moves ever farther away from girlhood with every moment, I feel a powerful longing for that girlhood, and I find myself feeling a certain sacred quality in these girls. And so I decided to create a work in which I play the role of these girls. How would it feel to be an “eternal girl”? These are portraits, like pressed flowers that can never fade, of girls who have gone to a world beyond our reach.

— Ayano Sudo

The book contains essays by photography critic Kotaro Iizawa and artist Yasumasa Morimura.